Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Parallels

Finishing reading some theories written by the proclaimed patron saint of the Wired magasine Marshall Mcluhan I started creating in my mind some parralels between hypoteses that where launched by him and real events that are happening in over times . His theories where quite complex and their spam predicted the event of globalisation and the ememrgence of a new type of culture . he was a media theory guru and started analysing what is the impact of media in general on the world . His
theories made space not for answers but for more questions and he predicted the emergence of the informational culture before anyone could even see things coming .
One of his theories was related to the electronic age in witch we find ourselves ; and age in witch there are no such things as remote places and where everything is happening now because of the hyperconnections and linking possibilities that the world wide web offers . He started comparing humans with the cave man in a metaphorical way describing the living spaces from the cities of the twenty first century as electric caves that are interconnected trough digital media . From television that became a window to what is happening in the world to the communication networks that where brought out by the emergence of the world wide web . This concept is powerful because it puts people in general in new aura transforming the cosmopolite inhabitants of the city in “ cave people “ that are connected trough the web . There is one subculture in witch the same phenomenon happens and that works on the same basic pattern ; that subculture is the otaku culture that is formed out of individuals that become part of an unreal universe and that enclose themselves in this universe becoming part of what is called a subculture . These people are connected trough digital media and the new places of encounter are not the corner cafe' s but chat hubs or topic related networks that are virtual . They are an indoor species that are addicted to the web and subordonate to their tool of communication . They are invisible enclosing themselves into a new world where socialization and outer daily activities are part of a new type of comunication , information being transmitted trough different auxiliary and sometimes
un ortodox ways . Being connected to this a network and having the russian constructivist theory that said that “ time is measured in distance “ in the back or our heads puts things in a new light . If “time is measured in distance” and the distance in the digital age is realtime is not the web the highway of the future , in witch the response is real timed and telepresence is the new presence . We are comunicating more and more trough squares ( monitors) being trapped into cave like universe where the web is becoming the new outside .
Another thing that can be related to this theory are the paintings that where made by Mandeloin Visendorp ,the cofounder of OMA and the wife of Rem Koolhaas ,when she was still in the Architectural Association in London . Her paintings have a surreal flair and expose urban minimalist composition where there are no people that inhabit the “outside” So if the monoliths that are painted on the canvas represent a form of inhabitable architecture that means that the “outside “ is of no interest for the inhabitants of these forms . They are focused on the web generated reality where everyone can communicate and participated to onn line conferences of meetings at any moment of the day . With this technology the remote dissapears and everyone be part of the same action . This form of communication is pushing the boudaries of things is all kinds of directions transforming communication as we know it into a form of dynamic experiment .
If the television was the infrastructure for an informational society where you could take your information from different sources channels then the web is the infrastructure for a prossumer ( as writer phillip K dick said ) society where one individual is not only a reciver of information anymore but he becomes a producer of information that can be distributed trough all kinds and different means , from avatars to social networking hubs and all kinds of information placement tools .
A prosumer can be seen as a filter between the real and the virtual ; anyone is a filter to something for exapmple a painter makes a painting that in manny cases can be a reinterpretation of the real world or a new world that only exisists on the canvas but it was generated by the brain that worked as recomposing machine of the real and generated the outcome of an abstract painting .We cannot deny that imagination is under the influece of the reality and that we are inspiring ourselves sometimes involuntarily out of the real world .

Background

Living in a foreign country and interacting with people that ask about your cultural background and roots makes yourself wonder sometimes about who you really are . In the last year I started wondering about that because of the bits and pieces of information that I gave out of myself about here i come from and how are things in that part of the world . I tried to think about what my country is and how can i describe the situations and the mutations trough witch it went and still does . One of the ways in witch these things can be explained can become very political and I tend to avoid politics because personally I did not see any salvation in politics what so ever ;so I tried to take things on a biographical level from witch I'm aloud to explain things in the circumstances of my own experience .
so i started thinking about my child hood going back to my first memories about things and I started remembering the way I was going to the kindergarden in the communist period when everyone had to adore and hail one singular image the image of our dictator , the one person that had guided everyone until the revolution came in 1989 . In that period things where slightly grey , the food was rationalized , was not avalbel all the time and we all where wearing blue uniforms . I remember that food was poor and that I was waiting with my grandfather at the long queues to by food . The best memories where when I was taking trips with my father at the factory where he was working and I saw the first computers that where working in that period on magnetic bands and perforated cards , those where the things with witch i was playing and having fun . At the kindergarden we had a strict program and we where singing the national anthem each morning . After that the revolution came and things changed fast . I remember being followed together with my mum by the secret service that was looking for the families of the persons that where part of the revolution ( that being my father ) so for a period of two weeks we where changing locations and staying in the night time with the lights off . In that period i saw for the first time the television program change because until then things where the same the same programs all the time . The revolution passed and i found myself in the second grade in a democratic society . This was the period when the explosion of privatization brought the western type of products into the city where I was living in and suddenly the windows of the shops became colorful and animated by the people that started to buy products in a free economy that was promising prosperity and a better life to everyone . this was the period when I saw the first films that where smuggled in the country by the people that started traveling abroad and bringing video tapes that where quite rare in that period of time the same case in the music tapes that where rare because there was no entertainment industry back then .everything was new and fake in a lot of cases people where eager to make money and develop no matter the ways in witch they where doing it . A lot of i-legal things happened and you could see how fast the things where changing , there was only one type of car back in the communist period and now there where hundreds . The school became a colorful place where in a lot of cases the teacher where confronted with situations that where completely different from what was before . The difference between generations was becoming more and more obvious . In the same time we where under the influence of television and music that was new and wester and in many cases did not had the best quality because of the commercial infusion of media that was happening . Each one of us took things for granted and digested everything that was given out with no definition of taste or what is good or bad , nobody knew so we took things as they where .
High school started and in many cases the school was accentuating the gaps that started dividing on a social level things . The television was the same and nobody was thinking about the future only in terms of tests and exams . The school was a mix of things we where studying everything and nothing in the same time . The world was a small place school home and the best entertainment that you could have was hanging in the neighborhood with the outer guys or going at the neighborhood parties where i n a lot of cases the most important thing was how big your muscles are .
High school was passing away and everyone was in the situation to think about the next stage of their lives and choose a university . i saw this as an escape from the daily school routine and I wanted to study something that was related to the creative environment so I choose architecture . I met a couple of young architects that opened the doors of my imagination and made me think in a whole new and different way . I started the school and things became different . I started traveling and the world suddenly became a bigger place full of unexpected situations . I realized the way people from abroad where seeing the part of the world from witch I was coming and every time I was coming back” home “
I was seeing more and more flaws in the system where I grew up and in the school . From the neighborhood to the international art and architecture events was a big leap and there was nothing in between the school was not compensating for the desires that such events and new places triggered in us . everything became unbalanced and to a certain degree there was to much impute things where changing on all the levels there wasn't one channel at the television like in my childhood , now you could choose between one hundred channels , at the school you where hearing bad comments from some teachers that you did not had enough culture and that in this way you will never sucsede in our line of work . In the same time the question related to identity and what are we was raised and there was no explanation . The forty years of communism in witch society became industrialized erased the former traditionalist identity . We where pulling forward and the teachers where pulling back trying
to ressurect some form of vernacular way of dealing with forms . I realized that I was learning more
by traveling and from movies than from the normal relation between teacher and student . There was always the question of what is value and what is not to be valued and the answers that I recived where opposite to the actions so i started constructing my own system of values and under the spell of travel I decided that It would be a good idea if I would try to see things with my own eyes and be in a different environment. I was not the best person or student but how can one be flawless when so many changes a occur in the world in witch you live . Architecture was a dream world in witch everything was possible until people where dragging you back into the real and making you realize that the outcome depends on multiple factors and that if you want to realize your personal vision you have to put a lot of energy in all the chapters of the process and that architecture and the creative field in general are submitted to individual points of views that in many cases leave talent and imagination behind making place for the so called forplay with the investor. The way i started seeing things was not clean anymore it became corrupted by all the outer parts that where required from a creator to materialize the starting vision .
After all the struggle i decided to leave for Amterdam bradded as a “creative city “ where cultures clash and the events related to them are happening on a daily basis , a city where you can bee old and new in the same time where artists from different corners of the world are mixing ideas and where I wanted to feel the community consciousness that drives things in a certain direction . I started realising here that art and the creative realm in general has the purpose to “ alter your eye “ and to make you see things in a different perspective . In many cases here there is no place for small talk there is a sort of jargon language that takes you directly to the point of culture and concept talk and this makes one to develop a new breed of language that can be applied only in specific places .
I left behind the memories of primary school ,where we where fed with the so called eurotrash music by mainstream media ; the memories of home and enclosed “space”of the home networks where in some people could give their opinion about everything that was happening in the world , to start understanding the world and the people from outer parts of the world and to see the different relations that can be established between people , situations , systems and subsystems ( culture can be represented under the form of a system )

Monday, December 24, 2007

Fragmentation ,

Fragmentation has many reasons ; trends , fashion , movies , food , lifestyle , smoking or the way people interact . More and more we live in a fragmented universe where one has to act in many many situations as a puzzle composer putting things together to have some sort of outcome . We see thin phenomenon happening from music, where things are recomposed in tunes that consist from the mixing of a number of different tracks to the way products are sold and advertising works making connections between all kinds of different events that at first sight are not connected in any way . Fragmentation in many cases determines some sort of social order and makes people come together according to their interests in one subject or event . The puzzle of reality does not stop here on the contrary as more deeper we go n a subject in a lot of cases we discover that things are dispersed in a lot of directions . One of the first philosophers who saw the fact that things are fragmented was Derrida a french philosopher with a controversial life and background but interesting theories for a period when things where seen quite homogene by a lot of outer philosophers . His theories caught the attention of people outside Europe and especially in the political active campuses from the united states where people where experimenting in that period with all kinds of ideas related to philosophy , politics and social order . His concepts where taken forward and became part of many theories related to architecture and art . The deconstruction of an event became construction in a different field and from a postmodern view they became updated in the present time when a lot of scholars are seeing the logic in ideas that where not logical in the beginnings .
In the same time a lot of contemporary artists are working with the idea of fragmentation in their work applying the concept on a certain subject and on their work in general recomposing different elements that are already there as part of their past work in new pieces of outcome . In many cases there is a desire of staying original so the inspiration for the future work is searched in the past one and the future outcome becomes a reinterpretation of the past . The answer to the question that is put in these cases is related to the way people or artists , designers or outer people that work in a creative industry is why to use past work ? is there some kind of fear sentiment related to the fact that originality is becoming an more and more transparent set of ideas or the fact that this way of working with things can become a sort of protection system against the critics and the people that are forging outer peoples ideas.
fragmentation is present everywhere from the way media is working transforming one person in a godlike creature , a superstar that is wanted by everyone with a strong aura that makes his or her presence in a place an event in its own right ; to the fact that media has the same reverse power in witch it can go beyond the private factor of one individual and fragment him or her into bits and pieces of information related to his or hers private life and events .
Fragmentation can be a process of going deep into a subject separating different elements and recomposing them in a third
piece of information that can be the total outcome of the process .
In a lot of cases the way a concept it is made is basically a fragmentation action up on a given subject that is transformend in the so called concept or start idea .

About directing .

Making a short video movie and outer things that are related to video art and content in general can be
quite a hard task in some cases . First of all as a strategy there has to be a main concept that makes and unites and can add or reformulate basic cuts and small ideas that can make a difference in the film or video . The construction of such thing can start form a lot of different places . The inspiration of the story writer or the fact that the director has a strong vision about how things can or should be can transform things and make them appear in a new light .
Starting from scratch put's the initiator of the project in a position where he has to concentrate on a range of things that are related to movie making in general . The fact that a movie is basically a bubble that will stay in time,a micro universe in witch a series of actions are happening or are triggered by a certain event or events makes things more difficulty and statement related . The director does not only send out a message under the form of the movie but can also control the story and give a personal impute, adding an individual flair to the final outcome .
There is the also the part in witch the movie making process is considered a form of art because the story is put together the way the footage is edited , locations , characters , clothing and the way the acting is done ( the acting represents a big percent of the success of a movie) are elements that count .
There are many categories of movies from science fiction to psychological dramas and movie that combine all kinds of puzzled elements but the thing that is quite important as general approach is the way a movie or the content of the movie associates with the viewer . The viewer is the final and the in many cases the most important factor that determines the way and the evolution a movie or a video clip
is going to make a difference . The way the viewer is digesting the information has a quite an importance and this is the place where the mastermind of the director can be seen and judged .
A movie can generate an intermediate and invisible presence between the screen and the viewer transforming the movie theater in a hot place full of different mind states and moods . In the same time it offers to the viewer the possibility of choosing a side and self relate with characters that are caught in the series of events that generate the main story line .
A director has the task to take the viewer on the unknown tehritor of the universe that is presented in the movie defining proportions and personalities trough the tools that are at hand in his position . A movie in the same time is a complex mix of concept with technology in our days we see directors that are producing movies with the help of computer technology and we see directors that make an anti statement to this way of indoor production feeling the need of real sets and real locations for their stories because (back to the basics) a director is a story teller that puts out a story trough the medium of movie making .
The viewer is under the spell of the director for a short period of time making the experience of watching a sort of trance experience in witch the viewer has a strong impute of information. Because the experience of watching is static on a physical level but dynamic on the level of perception , the movie is a metal infusion of actions ,images, musique and characters that caught in the series of events that are edited by the director .
Because a movie does not require the imagination of the viewer like a theater play does in some cases the canvas on witch the director works is becoming much broader ; in this way the director becoming the first true postmodern artist because of the fact that he has to manage all the information that is creates the movie .
From a personal point of view a movie is a composition of elements that have the purpose of transmitting the story and making the characters , locations , events and soundtrack to blend together in a singular type of vision that gives the needed impute to the viewer ; because in a lot of cases the events can be much more strongly presented trough one sight or one eye that makes in this way the association between reality and fiction more palpable .

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Electro/Pop


lyrics!?

Untitled


Gucci add directed by David Lynch

For the self .

Replicating culture

Being in a sometimes confusing environment where a lot of people talk , share , participate and generate cultural events at one point you start wondering what and from where does culture come and how does it spread . Some of the answers that popped into my mind here related to the desire of one person or a group of individuals to become part or to express themselves in a larger scene . Thinking from a different perspective culture can be linked to some kind of pattern behavior or a “common ground “ of group and self expression . There are different aspects that can be connected to the term culture some people have a deep academic way of looking at things and outer people take different elements and generate culture in their own way . In many cases this kind of surface mix that is generated by what is called popular culture is reflected in art , film and outer forms of expression .
In the world of today there is a slight contrast between what the globalization brings and the sometimes fragile vernacular culture that is strongly preserved by groups of people . The contrast is generated by the fact that there are still remote places where media ( the carrier of information ) does not have access
and the fact that culture is static in a lot of cases it remains the same and it can be carried by the next generations of people to come : this phenomenon happens usual in traditionalist type of societies where
things are layered in a certain time spam , but in a western type of society were media is the main information transmitter things can be slightly changed and leave to interpretation a lot of broadckasted
events . On the outer hand things can change fast in a media guided culture the things tend to become surffacy and the content can be provided by anyone .
On an individual level culture can be connected to the controversial memes that are cultural information carriers and that spread culture trough a group of people . So basically when a group of people is interracting they make an exchange of information without realising o the spot . The memes where discovered not so long ago and they are part of modern phsicology teories . They are considered controversial because there is no evidence that this is the true way the things work but the meme theory can give a logical explanation to how the things happen on an different level than usual . The mix of culture and cultures that is happening in todays world makes things complicate to explain and to see in advance so if we look trough a postmodern lens and magnify the interconnexions that are happening on a daily basis between people and the that some people influence outer people or groups of people the memes theory can become quite plausible .
Can macro things be reflected in the micro universes that surrounds one individual or a small group of people ? and is it possible that a pattern seen on a scale reflect and repeat itself in a fractalic way in another complete different environment
So going back to the beginning part of things culture can be seen as a perpetual machine that is a web of connections and patterns that function together and bring things from different levels on a common ground that generates the information that is becoming culture . In the same time everyone is a producer of information , so in a society where one person can produce media and transmit some sort of information the question comes if that part of information is culture in a primal faze or if there is a process that filtrates information and transforms it into culture . This another part of the process where memes intervine and become important on some a level ; the part where common habits are transmitted trough the meme way and becomes a common habit or activity .
As a conclusion memes are still controversial terms in the psychology of behaveiour and in the theories related to the way culture is transmitted on a small scale but the way they work is logical and can be seen in a lot of of interaction cases between different individuals .

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Design

An controversial figure in today's fashion world is Tom Ford the american designer that reenergized the house of Gucci in the 90's and became known for bringing the 70's hedonistic party mood on the catwalk and in the products of the house . Having the vision of a movie director he created the character that represents the gucci brand and gave new meanings to the word designer and creative director . There where a lot of articles regarding Tom Ford and in the same time he has a constant media presence because of the openings of new stores and the launch of his own brand but what I find interesting about him is the fact that he gave a new meaning to the word designer . A designer is the person that basicali designs the product that is going to be marketed and sold but in the case of Tom Ford the things are slightly different . He moved from the this faze and became implied in the buissnies side of things and in the strategy of the company , in the same time he controlled the communication and the image of the brand selling a mix of Tom Ford and Gucci and infusing his ideas in the designs giving the products a “Tom Ford look” that became the blueprint of the brand .
He was one of the first designers that crossed the lines that separate different functions in the structure of a company and he was one of the first ones that designed in a way that makes me think about what culture can mean . In a lot o cases the designers are just part of the process and do not imply themselfes in the communicational and strategical thinking of the brand they are the so called artists that do not deal with numbers they deal only with the creative concepts and have the mission of making the products that come out of their hands unique and original in all their aspects . Back to the case of Tom Ford,he was different becoming one with the brand and directing the visual aspect of the brand in a specific moment in time makes me think about the fact that probably there is some kind of mathematical pattern in the way the creative process of designing works . In a society where we are constantly bombarded with new products because of the shopping phenomenon Tom Ford started seeing the things in a simple way creating a new path and selling a lifestyle associated with the brand and with the house that he was representing .
There are a lot of theories related to what a designer can be and has to be but in a lot of cases the fact that a designer puts and creates some kind of “space “ to make things happen is neglected in a lot of cases . The designer is regarded as the person that designs and not as the person that can see the missing pieces of the puzzle and bring people together for a specific cause and with a specific reason .
A designer can be a “space creator “ and the person that gathers people together having the capacity of thinking from macro to micro ( or reverse) and applying some sort of cultural learnings on the creations that come out of his imagination . A designer can also be the person that can step away from the process and become a sort of annalist or observer ( trend-watcher ) of things being implied in the design process just by influencing the people that actually design .
On another level the designing process can be quite difficult and complicated because of the way it works and the mood of each designer . The mood of things is very important the way things work and are created is influenced by this . Designers often seek inspiration in the “outside world “ and this world can be the fine art world , the world of advertising, nature, music or life in general , so this human factor called inspiration often produces the link or the bridge between different types of thinking and working thus the inspiration factor can make the difference between sterile creations and successful outcomes . So the empathy between different people can bring out of the nothingness of the scratch beginnings a good product .
In the last few years the designer term is also became more and more a definition of the process more that on the people that are implied in it ( a good example for this is Ole Schefer one of the partners in charge of OMA that had reconized in an interview that sometimes you cannot work with a fully professional team and that sometimes the need of a free mind without professional dogmas is needed) . Because of the complex world that we are living in today a world that is under the pressure of constant shifts and associative problems ( see globalization ) the design process started to require more and more a multifaceted way of thinking so in a lot of cases people that have nothing to do with design can be implied in the actual brainstorm that generates the next phases . Designers are obliged in today's world to learn from different fiends and to generate a coherent concept that can be user friendly and have a longer time spam .

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Disapointement ,

Living in Amsterdam makes one to become an opened minded person in all kinds of directions ; the city brings together different races and different people from all kinds of places thus creating a strong mixture . On the other hand the fact that a lot of things are tolerated and allowed , makes the mix of cultures, behavior typology and lifestyles more interesting and sometimes weird for the people from outside . Amsterdam is not a big city compared with outer world cities but it has a strong identity because of the mix of cultures and the continuous cultural events that are happening with a sort of periodicity in different places . People generate this kinds of events and in a lot of cases make the best out of them . So in this scene the medium educated person should realize the fact that people in general can express themselves in all kinds of different ways , and have the need to express and create from a group to their personal identity because of the fact that the Amsterdam scene varies so much .
From the ancient times people expressed themselves trough body painting , piercing , tattoos , hair style and make up , clothing or rituals the fact that they are part of a group or the fact that they are simply different from a group . In a lot of cases the search for individuality of one can generate an
entire new cultural current .
Last weekend it happened an interesting thing that caught my attention . I was out partying at the last Raw party from this year , a party where usually there is a high mixture of people that express themselves in an different way . They are the people that create the party scene of the city and they are not afraid to show more that the rest who they are and implicitly what they like . I came at the party after twelve o clock and it was already full the musique was good and vibrant and everyone was having fun , talking , chilling or dancing . I went to the bar and ordered a beer and went to the dance floor to enter in the party mood and worm up myself ; I lit up a cigarette and started to pay attention to the musique and to the people around me . At one point i found a place near the dance floor that was not so crowded and I parked there . The Dj was amazing and behind him two people one male and one female where entertaining themselves on the rithm of the musique . The girl was dressed unusual in an dress that was home designed (the designer was behind her and the dj booth ) and the boy was half naked with a blond punk haircut and some piercing and make up . This kind of view is normal for an raw party so i was not intrigued by their look , what intrigued me was the comment that I heard when another guy with a punk haircut and with some chains and interesting costume passed in front of me . The comment was “what the fuck !!!” ; I turned to my left instinctively to see who make the comment ...now usually do not judge people but the guy that made the comment was a pathetic “party animal “...
he was the classic corner dancer that dances half of the night looking at the floor and with half of his shirt opened . for a moment I thought that I'm not in Amsterdam I thought that I'm again at the school parties or the neighborhood parties at witch I attended when I was younger , parties at witch everyone was looking visually in the same way or everyone was part of the same trend ...
In a few seconds my brain filled up with questions .. and related to the comment that I just heard . I did not say anything I just changed position and started asking myself all kinds of things . I one person not allowed to express itself trough piercings or make up or strage haircuts . In the world of today we see a lot of people that express the fact that they belong to a type of urban culture like hip- hop culture that is a movement or the punk , queer , rock and rasta that is more or less part of the world that surrounds us . Why are these people considered by some to be mutants of weird ? just because one hair cut or just because of the fact that they were piercings in places that outer people do not even dream ?
In a place where tolerance has a different meaning than in general and where bigger sins are committed than just having piercings and different haircuts you hear this commentary “what the f**k!!” . The only thing that one can do is to mirror back the question and make the “ what the f**k “person become the freak in the show .

Let's dance !

Monday, December 17, 2007

Surrealism and comic book culture ,

Fantasy can take different forms ; the comic book culture is an example of the parallel universe that imagination has created over the years the books start to have different values and the mix between the images from the drawing board and the dialog bubbles are becoming a new universe that takes life . The comic books have the information implemented is sort of cinematic and in the same time it can be easy for the reader or the person that translates this kind of “books “ into moving images, to understand the epic part of the events . These universes are quite diverse and divided in different genders and types of action . What is fascinating about them are the inhabitants of these comic strips . The characters have super powers and in many cases they can do unusual things that are more or less connected to the real world . In many cases these characters have interesting features , animal , nature related , robotic and hybrid . The universe where the action takes place has the same distorted features making the characters to become interesting and developed in a direction related to the place and universes from where they come . In a lot of cases we can se that some characters have features that are related to their powers and their body structure is changed in the relation with the way they function and the way they act as a character . In a lot of cases the interesting part of the story is the way the environment in witch the characters find themselves shapes the way they act and use their forces , their skin color , the way they look , the fashion that they use . These characters are alive and they interact trough their abilities to make things happen . The way they are concienved by their maker is unique and surrealist because of the way they are as characters and the unique universe where the action is happening . In a lot of cases the characters have a basic human personality because of the way the plot works but their powers are quite different from what human powers seem to be like they have amplified features more hair or special suites that can block or release some of the energy forms that are integrated in them as characters . On a different level some characters have an interesting backround and they can became what they are because of pervious events that happened in their past . The surreal circumstances are part of the way they live and at the same time the universe in witch they live is under the surreal trace
The place where the action takes place is defined by all kinds of adjectives like fictional places, dystopian society or places where man and machine are one . The heroes of these stories live lives that are part of these universes these kinds of things surround them on a level that makes things to take some kind of religious aspects . Their powers are unleashed transforming the places and battles into unreal bizzare energy releases . What is printed is becoming some sort of reality in the way that the people who read and follow these stories putting their imagination to work and expanding them .
There could be some examples of these short stories like the comic book culture from the states or the comic book culture from japan are based on the same type of interesting characters . On a different level these things are part of a bigger set , there are characters that are followed trough multiple story parts , the characters have an epic evolution that can be common or be individual . The comic book term is wrong because of the fact that only cumulated these comics can become a book .

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Lines

Friday, November 23, 2007

Advertising

It is said that advertising is the highest form o art , can that be true in a world of media saturated society , is the line between fine art , high art , art in general and advertising becoming blurred by the need to find new means to comunicate with the public , the consumers . Advertising starts to become a multifunctional medium , some of its functions are classic and practical like the need to express one products features and to convince or to trigger in the buyer the need, desire of having , possesing the object , product that is presented trough the campaign . The ad's started to take many forms and many directions because of the fact that in this world too trends can become important and can start giving directions to visual presentation of one specific object . Adverising can be self ironic funny serious and playful , the ad is a filter for presentation trough witch the bridge between the producer and the buyer is made . The fact that adverising is considerd the “highest form of art “ ( Andy Warhol quote ) makes me wander about what is advertising in reality . Advertising has become more than a simple tool with witch we are selling our products , advetising has reached peaks that are far beyond what advertising meant to be . In our days advertising started to link things objects , events and people that have mess apeal and are public figures , the industry of selling things is in a perpetual search for new strategies for selling things . Advertising has become a paralel world that is connected to the conumerist society . in this world people are triing to blend things ,create and recrearte things in different stiles , it is a process that requires a deep understanding of human nature and estetic notions about composition image and culture . Advertising ca give a direction to culture in our days because things are becoming more and more related to visual culture the normal notion of what culture means is under the presure of different elements and factors like globalization , digital age and the cultural remix that is produced because of the liberty of travel and moving from one point to the outer in this new world that has no more classical borders . Advertisind in a lot of cases is criticized because of the fact that its function is to produce more desire for consuming products and this in a world that is slowly becoming saturated with products like the USA that starts to have a new identity because of the way shopping and consumtion have penetrated the counciosness of society .
Adevertising has some good sides too because it can become identity creator in a world where identity is a serious issue because of the mutations that are happening in today's society because of the globalization process . In some cases we are what we consume and staying original and different is becoming harder and harder in a world where everyone is more and more individualistic and diverse . diversity is becoming the new uniformization society is becoming a fragment from a Jackson Pollok painting where the basic rules are chaos and the mix of colors and drips that can be metaphoricaly seen as individuals . We like in a world where we are constantly bombarded by all kinds of images that make us buy , change , aspire and redefine ourselfes in new ways that are related to personal . In more and more cases things tend to go in the inner world of the buyer the advertising creators have to cover with the ad's two main areas the general ( mass appeal ) and the individual ( the ad has to adress in the same time to the mass and to the individual ) .
Advertising is still young and it is still developing and finding new ways of expression and new places from where to take inspiration .” Ads are the cave art of the twentieth century”. ( Marshall Mcluhan )

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Visiting

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

P 21 exibition






Visuals Me and Manny Nikpour

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

100

100 posts

Friday, November 9, 2007

Not Posting

What hapens if you live out of posts your blog what if you do not post for a while ? Is posting like an addiction to the blog user ? can it becaome an addiction to write stoaryes ideeas and all kinds of things that are related to the ideea of posting ? What if you turn your back to the ideea of blogging ? Blog can become adictive at ane level becasue of the fact that posting is easy and it can be done at every monet of the day\night ;blogs are onnline jurnals that publish onnline everything that one's mind generates . Anauther part taht makes them interesting is the fact that they do not generate waste like paper and they become accesible to the outer comunities in real time so if you post you post i real time everything that was written on the blog .
with blogs you cvamn tag things or outher blogs too creating in this way a list of preferences that a user likes and makes avalieble for the outher users to be seen . So creating a list of links you forward in the same time the preferences that you like making a small web of link and ideeas with your blog . Blogs can be customised in a relatively easy way , in this way one user can transmit somekind of visula identity to the world that looks back to a blog giving it the web page surfing sensation . Creating a blog and finding comunities that are having the same onnline posting stile can make things quite easy in this way one user can find outher blog avatars and acess them in different ways or link himself to the bloggers comunity . Things can be interpreted and seen from outside too and blogs can ecome small tools for sharing opinions with an external viewer ( viewres ).
If you post everyday and link yourself to onnline comunityes .
Blogs can becaome part of the daily life and in the same time can be more or less "addictive " .

Monday, October 29, 2007

2

Two years had passed since I moved to Amsterdam , a place of confluence for many cultures and many types of spirituality , did this experience changed me ? the first answer that I would give would be no , it did not changed me ! but the true answer that does not come out until I'm away from this place and start living in a homogene type of society where everything is the same and it works in a normal way , that is the moment when I realise how much I'm changed. In Amsterdam too things work the normal way but there is a lot of racial and social diversity making things to have a slight twist . The fact that there is a strong racial difference and the fact that Amsterdam has a big mix of population makes out of it a small but global city on the world map ; studies have shown that this area of Europe is considered the holocore area because of the strong mix that it is happening on a small piece of land . People are from everywhere and that makes things more interesting some people came with their traditions and spirituality and some ( my case ) in search for a new identity and the things that this brings with it . It is strange to come here and to start acting politicaly corect towards everything and to understand everyone , but when I arrived there was no outer chance I had to put myself directly on this level and not to judge anything and anyone because it is not fair in many cases understanding a new culture brings with it new perspectives . The fact that things are strongly mixed and full of diversity makes out of amsterdam a colored city and in the same time a city with a strong cosmopolite atitude even if it is not very large as population . The population makes the mix and the city to work , you can go from one end to the another and realize that you crossed trough six seven or even more races on your way this makes things a bit bizarre if you come from a one race society where everyone was more or less the same . Amsterdam is a place where a lot of events are happening and where a lot of things are tolerated , drugs and prostitution are the main ilegal acts that are tolerated by the policies and after a while you realize that it is a good decision to tolerate things like this and not push them in the underground and transform them into ilegal activities . In this way autorities have a sort of overview an control on what it is happening in these words and can stop in time criminals .
In this place a lot of things blend and become strong statements for the next things to come , more important is the fact that Amsterdam is still a port even if it does not work like in old times , in our days it became a port for conferences and all kinds of activities oriented towards new and old media , future , musique , entertainment and spirituality . In the place where you can find people that are clearly oriented towards new ways of understanding the world trough religion and tolerance you can see the fact that both old and new religion has a place here . From people that find spirituality in the electronic age to people that still keep ancestral tradition there is a big scale of events that animate this kind of forms of manifestations . At the beginning I looked at things in an objective way trying trough knowledge to understand and seek for some sort or type of spirituality that could work for me , in time i realised that a lot of things can be religious and that religion and the spiritual realm is much more wast than I had ever imagined . Objects ,subjects , people and all kinds of things can be religious and be part of a sistem and becoming simbols and transcedens of information for these forms of knowledge .
The city has a puls of its own and in a duchampian way you can start hearing things talking to you , buildings and places have a strong history here and you can feel the vibe of pervious people and historical figures that had passed trough this place and made a mark more or less .

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Between things .

Where to place oneself in an age where one person has aces to every kind of information , and age when you are the same distance from everyone, an age that is ruled by the hyperlinks and multidisciplinary approach that the world wide web is bringing in our culture making everything accessible from everywhere . Identities are moving slowly to the realm of the virtual , many games users and social networking sites users are building strong identities that are present only in the virtual world , making them gods in the realm of the virtual . In may cases things can go quite far and thins kind of obsession can become a kind of lifestyle , one user can start trading weapons and outer types of virtual items that are part of a game( for example ) on sites like ebay where outer onnline users can buy the items that do not exist in the material world but they have a great value in the virtual reality of games .
It is more and more important to try to see that the things that sometimes we try hard to learn are already out there and that they can be used , times are changing from because of these factors that are related to the cyberworld and culture in general . Things are blending in an unexpected way making interconnection and the fact that knowledge is available everywhere and all the time is making the importance of the so called academic type of culture on a level unimportant , the interests are shifting from the notion related to what is the tool that we are using to how can we use the tool, and the “black hole “ that the internet is ( as Joshua Davis said in his coy theories about internet ) . We are becoming informational dealers and we are starting to play with information on different levels caring trough our websites , blogs and outer different types of sites information that defines our interests and have meaning on a “you are what you search” level , sometimes surfing and searching is more of a new tipe of sport . The world wide web had went on the phase is witch it was a communication tool only the internet had become a recipe giver and a consultance tool witch makes everyone that has a virtual presence available even if they are not onnline or connected to the net .
In a lot of cases we see that schools , and companies are opening towards a multidisciplinary aproach to the subjects that they are dealing with this is changing and making profesionalism to become somethingelse .

Friday, October 26, 2007

Dutch Design Week












The dutch design week was quite an expirience : held in multiple locations in Eindhoven the exibition had from product design to experimental design everything . In general things where mixed designers that had started working in the design field with garduate students presented all kinds of possible aproaches or answers to design related problems , from stratedgies to make cars and everyday objects more sustaineble multifunctional and with a transdisciplinary aproach that brought togethrer element of ergonomic psihology , structural way of seeing things and element that where part of outher mediums , made the exibition excyting and full of experimental work . The design academy graduation show was the last exibition that i visited . The graduation show was something that I could describe as an intercative and art related exibition, the things that where presented in the design academy where not simply just design assigments but art related works and experimental aproaches to different problems that whwre given . The exibitopn and the students where relaxed and presented works ranging from paintings , colages , photocolages , maquetes,prototypes and ready made products . The exibition was held in the space of the academy and you could get a glimpse of what and how the academy looks on the inside . Two flors full of experimental and interesting designs , some of the works where goeing inbetwen design architecture and art and experimet , exeperimentation beeing an interesting feature of whet the exibition meant for me . The designe acagemy seemed focused not so much on the profesionalism of the design professino but more on the experimental side of it and on putting out students that think in a creative and conceptual inovatory way about the subject that they have to solve trough design . in this case it is logical that you canot be a full profesional and deal with industrial design from the begining , the profesional side of the profesion comes with time and expirience . Anouther important side of the design profession is the fact taht in a lot of cases designers are becoming trendsetters trough the theories that they discover or produce and in a school that is related in some way to the creatiwe realm it is important to promote oryginality and experiment in the projects that students produce . The graduation show of the academy respected these kind of parameters and is fitting as an atitude in a 21 century tipe of school .

Monday, October 22, 2007

Beeing exposed to the party scene from Amsterdam I started noticing how things are related , one one hand witch are the main electronic musique types , the leading Dj's and at last the way things are promoted ; The promotion of a party is not a simple task for the organisers , from flyers to posters radio , myspace , websites and all kinds of alternative ways of making the people aware of the upcoming event are important , but still thinking about postsers and visual identity that is an important part of the process . In many cases thing are working quite ok trough the digital media . It is more and more of a fact that advertising is moving on the digital realm and the normal way of promoting things is not there anymore .The digital media has its database related way of dealing with the so called " customers " that are the message recivers . The fisrt thing that isimportant in related to this kind of way of advertising is the fact that doeing things trough digital media the waste that is produced trough a normal campaighn that requires posters , flyers and banners that are thrown away after the campaign are not present anymore , digital media is lean the screen is the main informational dislay and the main intercation tool between the uers that send out the ad or the signal to the database . This can be the next big stap in eliminatein the waste that remains after a normal advertising campaign . There are no more posters that contain the content , information for the advertising campaign there is only database senders and recivers of information that is not printed anymore . On the outher hand the user that is sending out the "ad " can interact and have imediate feedback from the reciver and the content that is send out can be also an intercative element under the form of video or images that are sended out trough the database .

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are becoming more and more important in the everyday browsing process , in a lot of cases things have to be rewind and put together under the form of new document or research . In the virtula realm this kind or path trough hyperlinks is quite important because the perception of the world in changing with the world wide web revolution . Things are moving to the screen from the worktable and to have a daily oveview of the links that where used is quite important . On another level social networking sites are becoming more and more popular because of the links that they can produse , users can start making onnline friends . This onnline presence can be seen as the telepresence was seen in the 60ties , more and more we are comunicating trough television and outher enviroments that are virtual . The measn of comunications are changing and things are becoming more and more related to what theorists in the 60 ties where imagining the world . They saw what imersion and telepresence can and will be in the near future . The fact that comunication and self posting trough social networking sites is more and more of a reality and that identity is becoming split in two by the emergence of the web related world , netwoking sites started to be composed in a puzzle manner , beeing more specific sites are made out of pieces that can be used by anyone who takes a look at the one's personal avatar tipe of page . the fact that one personal page is composed out of more informational elements that can be reused directly by outher onnline users . The personal page became two things in the same time , a way of making oneself known in the virtual world and a tool for the users that are accesing the page and are intercating with the avatar page ; the users can use different features that are composing the avatar . Anauther theory that can be related to the virtual realm and the use of all kinds of forms of networking , this form of comunication leave traces , these traces are more or less what William Gibson was talking about when he was explaining the fact that we leave traces everywere , especialy in a world where digital identity is becomming more and more inportant , internet serving as the new vehicle for moving around it is the new space that connects people and that in the same time creates and defines identity in the new century , if one person or a company does not have an onnline presence it does not exist from a point of view . Slowly the digital media is taking over newspapers are transforming in onnline material and blogs , people Start takiinkg theyr news fronm the internet and information is not anymores spread but it is acesed by users from all around the world .

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Fitting in

The ninties whare about color and musical hits that seem quite far if I look at them now , these media tipe of things where put over soemkind of new transitional economical sistem trough witch Romania went in the nintyes , everyone discovered the marveleous world of capitalisma and private enterprises and started makind buissnies that took forward the romania lifestisle . in this mixedup place I grew up and now finding mysel in a new tipe of society I sometimes I feel that I'm dragged away from what is happening in the presend because of the reinterpretation of the ninteyes that is happening . At one poit things just drifted awai in a strage direction and started taking the shape two directions , the electronic direction in witch things are heading anyway and the outer direction the direction of the reinterpretation of things . these seemed the only directions that can be the option of things but I discovered thta there are places that mixed things related to what the electronic age means . this moment made me rethink where things might fit in . This tipe of media offered me a new way of looking at things a way in witch things can be redesigned and put in a new time frame without altering theyr content . The content is in some sort of connection with the whole picture that is presented there is this need of linking the things from the begining of the process trough the whole process .This is the reason that there is no connection between the media culture of the ninties with the new media oriented culture of the 2000 . A lot of things that whare part of the television based culture changed and became interactive trough the use of the world wide web . thing are moving onnline and are becoming more functional on a level . Interactivity is becoming the blend between the promised virtual world and the interconectivity that the net promises.
This tipe of transgresion from one medium to anauther mafde things shift culturaly things are not related anymore only to the posibility of transmiting information trough the normal way that television had done . The fact that the medium changed made possible a new way of structuring information at a new level . Information became databased , structured and had a new tipe of visual interface that allowed people at one degree to divide it or to send things in all tipes of new formats . at this point you realise that thinghs can not be changed anymore the discrepance between the media and visual culture of the ninteys and the culture that is related to electronic media of the new decade . The shift had become real and is become a question of seeing things with a new glance and a new understanding of knoledge and interconectivity that the world wide web brings .

Friday, October 12, 2007

Looking at technology .

The future working hubs will integrate things that are happening and resonating write now in the visual and technological frelated cultures . On a social level because of the mixing of population and the intercation between people some things tend to become obivios like the associations that are produced with trends you can spot out from witch culture one is just by looking at the haircut that is because of the haircut that the person has . fashion , accesories hairtrands and all kinds of things like these are more or less speciffic to the way things are thought after . a working hub will be a place where multidisciplinarity will be put at the use of one tipe of outcome . the inhabiters of this tipe of hub will be more or less aware of tpes of cultures of politics and fashion that is generated because of the glodbal tipe of common thinking . The hub will operate on the exterior level trough the work that comes out of it . The inhabiters will have a working function in some cases the language that bonds and makes people comunicate will not have any kind of function anymore things becoming encoded in trend and tipe of waves transmited in the moment when one person from the work place will start sharing sounds or visual scapes with people around . This tipe of sharing will be the way people will forme some sort of personal opinion about the new person the joined the grup or that is part of the grup in this way beeing more easy to expres the frame of tipe of visual related things . This tipe of sharing things will be made circles wise becoming some sort of sharing moment of the day . Trough the same process we will be able to update and to make things more or less explicit for the people around . this tipe of output of information will become a way trugh anyone will start creating visual and audio scapes that can "replace the normal tipe of party Dj and Vj's . The first improvemet in this industrie will be the inprovement generated trough a new tipe of software attached to the normal djiing tipe of software . The things will be connecetd trough . From anauter tipe of direction things will not look so pluged and cabled as thay look wright now because of the main console at witch people are connected at this moment . in many cases Dj ing and Vjing require some sort of combination between two tipes of consoles thet prodce a atmosfere rithm together . The two consoles will belnd together at one point allowing trough the smae apparature the same indiviual to give sound /visual scape to the people . This kind of tecnology will requite all time transportation between the points where things will be made . an hypothesis in the fact that maybe oneself will have to travel and bring this tipe of technology from one place to anouhter because of the facts related to this new tipe of language that will have nothing to do with normal comunication . This will become a sort of ritualc way of looking to someone that presents their thoughts to the rest of the world by using technology . This kind of editing will become vital because the oryginality of the artist behind will be seen from the way thing are edited . The material will be abundent because of all the world wide web that offers hubs and sharing sites from witch everyone can download material for the use . this kind of tipe of editing will embed that person's way of seeing the surroundings and putting them into this new tipe of comunicational visual language .
This tipe of comunication will make things differentiate in the way society will look , There will be no more need for language things will change as ordeing becoming more strict as a way of appearing and as social eficiency .

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

ninties

the ninties was a period maked by popular culture and all kinds of events that where based in this time frame , The pklaces where you can see the main features of culture in general . The things ca varry from field to filed but there are things that can be considerd the zeitgeist of the decade , these things are part of the culture and had become part of it because of the fact that they express the main caracter of that particular moment in time . There are many theories that relate design to some sort of time and space related moment things can be connected because of the general trend that is followed by the society . There are things that are connected to visual culture that influences the visual behaviour of a group . Things tend to go in a direction or anauther because of the way people feel and relate to visual factors as design , fashion and colors in general there can be established some sort of basic rule for designing it althow one must discover thing to make them go in directions that are sometimes trend generators in their own way .
The ninties was a period that had fluctuations in what visual culture means things wary from place to place making them mix later . The media of ninties was full of colours and sunny places in some cases things from the eighites repeated themselfes in the ninities , musique , films , art and outher tipe of things treleted to visula language became imprinted with trhe sprith of the ninties . After getting out in 2000 things started switching in a fast way towards a new tipe of visual and musical tipe of culture that is more and more under the rithm and in balance with technological developments that occur with a fast frequecie and become more and more multilayered and handy for different tipes users . Culture became software oriebted becoming more and more related to this new tipe of media the electronic one . In the same time because of the free sharing of sampeling and mixing software . The spread of this tipe of technology was fast and it happened in a short time . The main areas where the change occured was in the clubbing scene and wekend enetertaiment related events . the DJ became an impoartnt figure that started changeing how people viewed musique .
In the same time things changed in a fast way the electronic and software based culture became more and more important in a public area where tasks that where hand made until recently had become simulated or processed trough the algorithm of the software in use . The shif between the ninties and the begining of the real eletronic age was quite strong more and more people becoming interested in this kind of subject .
The zeithgeist of the ninties passed avay and a new era started the era of electronic musique and clubs that related to it .
Multiple people that are important as cultural trend setters dicovered the general mix that this kind of culture started produceing things became accelerated by the world wide web and mixed by the globalization of things and the intercultural excange that is happening because of the contact between cultures and people in general . In some cases the repeitition of retro based tipe of design became uninteresting things having a new tipe of aura that surrounded some products that where inspired by futuristic tipe of thinking . Products became visualy linked to the future and designers started becoming insipred by themes that are related to biology , genetics and outher tipe of sciences that have a strong relation with the future . In some cases designer or architects started neglecting the values of the time frame in witch they are and started rethinking the design strategy influencing or produceing a new curent in design .

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Music

Beeing in a place where dance culture is an important social component I started collecting music that has some relevance for my ear. Electronic music is the dominant style of music that is lisend in the clubs and major venues . The electronic music scene is dominated by a mix of styles and types of music. International collaborations and the fact that the events related to this kind and music style are happening with a big frecquence , the artists that are plying being from an international scene and a lot of theme are underground names that more or less are playing a mixed style of m usic that can be called simple electronic dance music . I startd lissening and started becoming interested in this style of music from some time now and I realysed that in outher parts of Europe electronic musique is not too popular or that ther is an emergence of ^0;ties and &0 ties musicque that is fashionable in some places . In the same time in outer places the electronic music gendres are split between all kinds of types and waves that come and go I the field of Dj ind sampeling and mixing became more and more important in the composition of such syles.
The scenes are separated but niot in this part of Europe where because of the mutiple tipes of musique things became blended and Dj ;s and producers started influencing each outer and started making musique that has one target , to make you move and interact trough movement dancing being the universal language . In some cases this kind of culture is not important for cultural people but it can say a lot about things in general and about the place wher one tipe of society is placed . I say this becase I started seeing some kind of rupture that appeared in the clubbing culture between the musique f the parst and the musique that is promoted in our days .in the clubbing and dance culture . This kind of yupture is strong and can be seen in may places because of the fact that the 90ties where about the senevtyes and in the same time a new technology emerged that opened up the possibility of produceing electronic musique. This musique is completely different frm what happened in the past and what was produced until now . The fact that slowly electronic musique is taking owe the clubs and the way of producing things in general is a sighn that we are at the brink of a new tipe of industrial revolution ,As in may pervious cases there can be seen the way that things that are changing in the society are reflected ijn art, and musique these medium being some kind of signal for the apereance of new medium and eperimentation.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Interface

I hear words like friendly interface , formal ergomony and problems related to the weight ,gigabytes and screen radiations more and more in the world related to technology .
The developers that are manufacturing new gadgets that are used in everyday life started working more and more in developing a friendly human computer interface that can work and be learned by any beginner in short time spam. Human computer was not so long ago left in behind and it wasn’s such a big issue the main issues being hard drives , speed and ram number . The interface did not count to much until these objects started invading everyday activities . Human computer interface for some companies is still a new issue in the last thirty years computers developed in five stages or five generations of computers , starting from the first numerical machines that culd occupy some hundred square meters as volume and could make only some simple numerical tasks to the today’s computer that is small , personal and can run all kinds of applications . The world of computers evolved and the machines mutated and evolved passing trough different generations . The computer became more personal than ever being a normal tool in everyday life and world . Becoming a personal too the coputer is more and more part of who we are and more importat who the use is being personal means thet there has to be a good interaction and interface between the owner and the owned object . Things went boom computers having more had disk space and becoming access tools in all sort of networks , but what is the future of human computer interface and interaction ? At this point in time the screen , the mouse and the keyboard are the terminals that connect us to the cyberworld . These are the terminals that many designers try to make more ergonomic and more “friendly” and simple , but what is the future , what are the predictions .There are many scenarios that range from cyberworlds where the interface problem will be solved by being connected to a mainframe trough an uploading program; to cyborgs and the attaching to the human body all kinds of apparature that will cover a broad range of functions ; outher designers think about minimaizing everything to the level of a singular hand watch sized object that will be elegant and will contain all the prewiopus functions and more because of the permanent connection trough wireless technology with the world wide web . All these scenarios can be correct and on a lot of them there are interaction designers and all kinds of outher interface developers that work on new ideas . But maybe from anouter perspective things are stagnating , computers had reached the fifth generation where they are personal and have a big informational stoking power but in the same time we are obliged to work with external hard drives and assisting apparature . Witch is the most effective way of stoking information , witch could be the most friendly interface these are the questions that will take personal coputers to the next generation the biological coputer that is made out of organic matter , tissue . The sixth generation will be made out of organic matter because this kind of matter has the power to stock more information than any outer nonorganic counterpart . One single cell contains more genetical information that a douzen hard drives this making on an experimetal level the use of this kind of matter extremely appealing . The gennetical growth is more and more of a reality the first replicating experiments proved that genetics has a spetial places in this coming century . Computers will become at one point living organisms made out of genetic material . This is the next big step in developing a friendly interface that will become a companion and will have maybe some kind of intellect preprogrammed with the help of genetics ,the genetic material being the best way to stock information in big quantities .

Cyber culture

In the last few years because of the emergence of the internet as the new medium of communication , sharing ,advetiseing , shopping and social networking I started observing thefact that in some places things started to split in two . In some places the ecltronic media started forming comnuities that have common interes and share the same cultural pattern . Slowly the computer is starting to replace the television dominated enviroment . The culture started to split in two one part is dominated by television personalities , stars and all kinds of media darlings and the outer has its own heroes made out of “hackers” , programmers and all kind of persons that have programming developed skills and that can use the computer in their personal benefit making out of it a multifunctional tool witch connected to the world wide web can reach every corner of the world .
These two new cultural tools and components the world wide web from witch you can download and upload information compressed in all kind of file formats or that can serve as a platform for multiple types of software , encyclopedias that offer information about any subject or social networking sites that can link people in a way that was unimaginable a decade ago and the personal computer that can be transformed in a multi functional and multitasking tool are the basic incredients for the new type of on line culture that is emerging trough and because of these technologies . Games and Virtual reality offers a new way to escape from sometimes cliche type of lifestyle and the raw reality . New type of cyber addictions had appeared ,games and virtual communities that develop in an unreal space are more and more in the spotlight and the everyday normal . Electronic media is starting to be part of everyday life and promises a change in the infrastructure of society making services more handy and more easy to access from all over the world . Television is slowly replaced by an enviroment that gives the user the opportunity to post real time feedback on an issue or on any kind of information that is online . This is not the first time that one type of industrie suffers because a medium is replaced . In the united states of America in the 60’tes that was a strong period of change the cinetografic industrie had a lot to suffer because of the mass production of the television set . After a wile thing enterd a new era and things became balanced again . Is this fenomenon repeating itself in ourdays when things tend to go on line and move from television to the screens of our computers?
This phenomenon splits things in two more and more we start seeing everyday culture made out of popstars , boxoffice movies , and famous actors that has a sort of normality because we are used to it , and a new type of cyberculture where the heroes are people that can manipulate this new enviroment and that are connected to the flow of information and that are working in on the outer side of the line that divides the world being connected with online communities that work in the virtual realm .
Cyberculture is more and more real and palpable new technologies making oneself to be put in a new social position and rethink the way people interact , share and communicate , society is shifting from a consumer society to a society that puts information in the shopping basket and transforms the consumer into prosumer that is an digital information consumer geeky and multidisciplinary in knowledge that is always on the look of new informational flows .
Technology is becoming an must accessory in everyday life . and internet is not anymore a unreal place but it becomes for may people the tool with witch can have acces to a new type of on line economy and market place .
The world wide web is real it is formed out of satellites that orbit around the globe , waves that carry information trough the atmosphere , cables coolers and plugs that connect things together , servers that accumulate and host information , sites and outer on line applications . These components form the nervous system of the brain that will command the informational infrastructure of the tomorrow. The web is the new “real” where things are “mirrored” but with a new set of rules .

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Download

Paticipating at many conferences about new media and the technology related to it, I started hearing all kinds of science fiction scenarios regarding the human computer interface and the how could things blend and become more " friendly" . From scenarios that woke up in me memories from my childhood when I was watching videos with movies that had the main characters cyborgs, androids or high-tech robots that came from outer universes ( see Transformers ) to all kinds of theories related to immersion in virtual spaces , make you wonder about the fact that science fiction cyborgs and VR are things that are more and more palpable and close reality ( I was once reading the profile of a person on a social networking site and she wrote that she cant live without her digital camera ...does she need to have it attached to her body all the time ?) With another event I read the cyborg manifesto that if I would of told to someone a few years ago that this kind of manifesto exists that person would of laugh his /hers stomach out . In many places people still find these disscutions ridiculess althow in some circles these kind of talks is trendy .
Things started spinning in my brain and I started remembering movies , robots that I found dear, cyborgs that where half human half machine , drawings that I did being inspired by these characters . being under the influence films ,cartoons and outer heroes that are from this universe I started creating my own tipes of cyborgs and robots that where purely products of my imagination . What made me stop from remembering all these things was one idea that made me think in a new direction . The idea was related to koledge and to human condition . The idea was launched by an american university teacher that was talking about the possibility of downloading his memories and intelect in a new body . This ideea is related to anouther contemporary subject that is clonoing .in the case of clonning there is the same restlt , the replication of one entity . Clooning is still a little bit far from today's relity althow Einstein said that if the 20'th century was the centuty of phisics than the 21 century will be the centuriy of genetics .
Goeing back to the first ideea that creeated some sort of debate in the academical enviroments it is quite possible that in the near future we will be able to transmit the intelect , memories and character of one person in a new brain ; the question that remains is what kind of brain and what kind of body will host all the "downloaded " knoledge .
This is a huge question and many cases the fuure looks a related to robots and things that are more or less built not grown .At this moment thisng that in the ninties were presented as science fiction are allready avlieble functional and in a lot of cases they metamorph in reality . the preditions that science fition made are becoming reality with an alarming speed .
On a bigger level we are creting a big brain for the next generations to come , all the technological infrastructure , internet and the searchengines can be thought of like a new brain that is learning every minute what we like and what means to be human , and at one point it will take over some social functions automatising segments of the society . At one point in the future there will be no more schools or teachers there will be children that at certain age will recive some sort of password with witch they will access o website on the world wide web that will have the function of an onnline school with subjects related to the desires and interesed expressed by the student in certain fields of knoledge .
The conclusions that can be drawn from this are that genetics and robotics are real and uptodate , and that cyberculture is becoming reality .

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Cinematic thinking

Sometimes profesion can affect the way you see things and the way you structure outer activities that are part from your everyday life . In some cases the profession that we follow can affect the lifestile that we lead and reshape thing in our life . In outer cases the switch from one tipe of thinking to anauter takes some time and it can be an interesting process . Beeing partr of the architectural field for a while made me "think " in an architectural way about things in general , decoration was not needed anymore , structure and straightness had become important and rationality was never questioned ; but i changed my studies to the visual field where things leave the phisical realm and go in the realm or the imaginary scriping , epic and bidimensionality . In this case the way you think about a projecthas to change and become more permissive with abstartct events and actions . Experiment becomes importsnt at a certain level and concepts as rationality can be left behind . In the cinematic worldmovement and image have an important spot and the epic part of the process gles tham together . In many cases you have to start from scratch with things both conceptualy and tool related . The cinematic offers a lot of space for experiment and inovation , it's and imaginative reality that is fluid and unstable . In the architecture laws of gravity can change things trelated to the project but in the world of visuals you can work with a multiple canvases that can be assebled in a epic event that has the final form of an film or video .
So the recurements to start someting is to open the imagination and to let the mind to be insipred or influenced by everything all the time , in a lot of cases a recording machine tipe of thinking can be usefull . A movie is a new and independent universe that is seald in a bubble that remains the same . A film can take things in a different part and imerese the spectator in a universe that is placesd in a different time , planet or world.
These features make the difference between the tipes of thinking , architecture , when is in a incipiente phase phase does not require a certain audio related way of editing , but film requires talents that are related to sound and situations .
In some cases directors can be seen as geniuses that can affect their audience in a deep way , using situations , sound , story that can make the public to behave and to become different after the interaction with the film . Media is composed in many cases from movies that can move us or change the way we see things in general.

One year experience

Moving to Amsterdam is more than an expirience , I moved one year ago in the nederlands beeing more specific in Amsterdam acity famous fro its tolerance towards drugs , and prostitution. At first sight Amsterdam is a chaotic enviroment that has to be explored the "hard" way to be fully discovered . In the middle of the day the central streets are invaded with people , from toursts to local people from shoppers to junkies all kinds places that are situated on the street level are full of people that have daily activities . You can see lost people , people that are in a hurry , stoned people , serious people , it's a spectacle just to stay on the street and to watch the flux of tourists that are walking around and admire the city . Amsterdam as population is quite small comparing it with other European cities but in the same time is quite cosmopolite in the event related area . The big cultural scene , the high density of many cultures in one place ( the area that surrounds Amsterdam and goes to the north is called the holocore ) make this city a strong cultural pole and in the same time a cosmopolite city . The desity of cultures bigger here than in New York that is a renoved place for its cultural landskape , makes thins extremely divers and sometimes chaotic . you can find a broad range of things and products that come from allaround the globe and are connected to all kinds of cultures . In this kind of city where cultures are mixed and small traditions are put together with a cosmopolite attitude comunication has an important place and effect . The way people are expressing themselves is more accentuated than in a place where the population is homogen both as a nation and as a race . This kind of way of expressing oneself generates in a lot of times an strange or interesting image that can wary from one individula to anauther . Here the accent that is put on the trend is much more big than in other places , fashion is not just" wheareble stuff , its a form of comunication between people . In the same category enters the place where you go out , the musique that you lissen and party on , these kind of things have a different importance in a city where you ca easily lose your identity and yourself in the multidiverse field of possibilities . So basicaly all these elements define who you are and give you for the outside eye a sort of identity that is important in order to transmit faster the information that defines you .
These elements are part of a comunicational language and are important in an enviroment that inevitably reshapes you as an individual .After a while people that are new to this tipe of mixed culture start understanding the importance of things related to this tipe of comunicational language . When I moved to this place my expectations were quite different from what I got . I was expecting a country that was purely dutch but things where different , I arrived and moved from one place to anauthere until I started living on a boat that was transformed in a student facility , On the boat each cabin was transformed in a individual room that was accomodateing a student . There where four decks and full of international students
comming from Europe , Germany , Austria, Latvia, France ,Spain, Hungary and The Nederlands . After a short wile I started seeing the boat as a metaphor for the Nederlands, parts of The Nederlands are "floating" on the water like boats and in the same time there was the same social mix like in the rest of the city (offcorse on a different scale ) . The first reaction that I had was to isolate myself from the rest and to start thinking about what is happening . After a short while I realized that things are not that bad and that I am in an international enviroment and as a strategy I have to find some common points between me and the people with witch I will become friends . So I started searching after comon elemets that can solve the situaltion , language was simple english come handy , after that musique , culture, history and outher things like that made out of me a social being again . i became freinds with people from france , Austria , Germany ,Hungary and the Nederlands .The metaphorical boat was opening for me and things started functioning in an interesting way . After a short wile I realized that my metod was not verry original outer people had the same strategy and they tried to make the same steps as me so things blended in a sort of direction.I became accoustomed with the fact that globalization and international enviromets are quite real and that people from different parts of the world with different cultural backrounds can be together under one roof .At first i felt small and with no signifiance but after a short wile I started to awake from this state and started comunicateing with my fellow students . I became opened with people that where from totaly different places .
So comming from a coplete homogenius society ans "culture" as race as skin colour and outer elements that bond a population together i found myself back to zero in a place where everyone is different and has a different language and skin color ; things tend to have a different persective . This place made the gap( that had allready been there) between me and my home culture to become bigger . Things starte to break and you sudently realize that the place from where you come is enclosed both mentaly and "culturaly" . You start asking yourself why people back home are labeling someone after the way that he or she is dressed and why diversity in the truth meaning of the word in not accepted or not even understood . You try to understand this but it takes to much effort and things remain in the form of a gap . On anouther level i realize that I was born in the last comunistic period that was in the same time the most gray period after that I rememberd the week in the revolution time when I was running and hyding with my family from the secret service the fall of the dictator , fredom , the first tripp abroad when I saw the first time cocacola and fanta in metal cans , economical" transition" , capitalism ? and now , part of an international enviroment . At one point i started seeing myself without identity and I became a sort of an observer marveling because of the diversity with witch I was confronted . Things started from scratch and I started searching for new musique , interesting places and with the desire to expand my mind and my thoughts . The world became a new place in every seccond . A loty of things change when you find yourself in this kind of enviroment , things become surreal one one hand and extremely diverse one the outer . One year of moving from one place to anauther beeing nomad in a place where there is a big mixture of races made me think about things that where not connected to pervious things . The difference betwen me and my home place became more and more accentuated on a certain level . After you start adapting to the thigs that surrounds you and to the people that surround you change your sight and eyes with witch you see the world , the surrounding universe becoming a layered place with a multicultural flavour that can change you in a lot of ways; until you ask yourself questions related to identity and in the same time you become a mix of themes , images , patterns , desires , directions , moods , places and characters , you are part of the movie called globalization.